Charles Eames

Background

Charles Ormond Eames Jr. (June 17, 1907 – August 21, 1978) was an American designer, architect and filmmaker, born in St. Louis, Missouri. He studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, left after two years, and from 1930 ran an architectural practice in St. Louis. In 1938 he moved to the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan at Eliel Saarinen's invitation, where he became an instructor and head of the industrial design department.

Signature Style

At Cranbrook, Eames and Eero Saarinen designed prize-winning furniture for MoMA's "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" competition, using the wood-moulding technique originally developed by Alvar Aalto. Eames later developed it with Ray Eames in many moulded plywood products, including chairs and other furniture, and splints and stretchers for the US Navy during World War II. He described his approach this way: "In our chairs, we have not attempted to solve the problem of how people should sit. Instead, we accepted the way people do sit and operated within that framework."

Notable Works

• Prize-winning furniture with Eero Saarinen for MoMA's Organic Design in Home Furnishings competition
• Eames House (Case Study House No. 8), Pacific Palisades, 1949, with Ray Eames
• Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman (1955) and moulded plywood furniture
• IBM exhibitions Mathematica (1961) and the IBM Pavilion at the 1964 New York World's Fair

Legacy

From 1943 until his death the couple worked together at the Eames Office, producing what Wikipedia calls an unparalleled breadth of creative design work across many disciplines. Charles Eames gave the Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard in 1970–71 and died in St. Louis in 1978; the Eames House remains a milestone of modern architecture.